A person who I know from a long time ago who is now a senior pastor posted this on Facebook… The claim at the beginning of the video is that he is going to prove that Christianity is true… I have not watched it yet but I’m about to. I would love people’s perspectives if they have the time to watch and thoughtfully critique etc…

Hi Ivy – I will look at it later today though I suspect, as I have said in the past about other videos you posted, that I have heard it all before. I doubt if it will have anything original but I may be surprised.

Here is one of the “experts” who sees no problem in how scientific accounts of Creation and the Bible are incompatible. Here is the other.

So, we have a pastor and 2 Christian apologists……hmmmm……I wonder how many times “The Bible tells us” will be used to prove their points. By that I mean will they use the Bible to prove the Bible.

But I will try to be open minded and will listen for the “evidence” as I am sure 2 scholars will understand the difference between making a case for their argument and producing actual evidence for it.

Your Honor, we have made several arguments to show that the defendant was at the scene.

Have you got any actual evidence to support those arguments?

But Your Honor our arguments make sense to us. We have spent a lot of time researching them.

I understand that but over the years people have made the same claims about other defendants being at the scene and now we know they never were. However, I will accept your arguments are convincing if you can supply even the smallest shred of evidence that can exist on its own merits without you having to make further appeals to it veracity. What can you bring to the table seeing as the defendant is still not present to be questioned?

But Your Honor we really believe he was there.

Side question: what is the difference between a junior and a senior pastor?

OK….I had a listen…

21:00 It is claimed that Paul’s writings were within a few months of the events???? Do they discuss that at least 5 “letters” were not written by Paul?

23:50 – “the Christian sources (are unbiased) and are still valuable from a historical perspective and virtually every historian on the planet would take the gospels seriously as history” (to some degree). Really?

28:15 – 29:30 This is terrible and anything but scholarly. Claims that the gospels are evidence is using the Bible to prove the Bible and that Paul knew the major eye-witnesses makes his accounts independent is wrong.

Then from 29:45 the “senior pastor” talks about “facts”. He is taking it for granted that these are “facts”. This is facile.

Where it gets even worse, from the perspective of having any intellectual or scholarly merit, it at 31:00 where one of the Christian apologetics standard arguments is introduced. The works of Tacitus, Pliny and Josephus are appealed to. These claims have been long debunked. I am not going to waste my time on explaining this but more here. The “fact” that these scholars don’t get this is a display of their ignorance on the subject. Claiming at 20:18 that professional historians today think Tacitus is a very good source (for information on Jesus) is just not true.

I cannot listen to anymore at the moment. After more than 30 minutes no new arguments have been introduced that have not been thoroughly debunked and zero evidence of any kind has been offered for consideration.

@simon – The title of the video is “Convincing historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus”. The first 30 minutes offers no evidence. The arguments used are “because the Bible says so” or appeals to long debunked non-biblical historical writings.

Note: I wonder how many Christians understand what these scholars meant by “Q” during their commentary? It is a term used by “Concordance” historians but they should have explained this as I have left many a theist baffled by having to explain it to them during debates, as I have when I correct them when they misquote scripture. Here.

Talking about love, forgiveness, social harmony, working together, all that kind of thing. Helping and caring for the needy.

Convincing historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus

I think they’re on a hiding to nothing. All we can have is the Bible, and try to work out what might have been real and what might have been made up later, considering the circumstances of how stories get transmitted through time.

Talking about love, forgiveness, social harmony, working together, all that kind of thing. Helping and caring for the needy.

Yes, but we had all of that (and more) before those virtues were hijacked by Christianity. Christianity has nothing to offer me and I need nothing from it. Humanity would be better off without it. It is unbelievable.

They’re good at those things, and Christianity is a good place to learn about / practice them. Of course, there are other places, but that doesn’t invalidate the contribution of Christianity, at all. I think that Christianity has contributed a lot to the sum of love and charity in the world.

Again, they’ve done the opposite, a whole lot of times as well. That’s why cherry-picking is to be encouraged. I think Jordan Peterson is right to look at the rich psychological mythology that exists within the religion.

I still can’t figure out the Garden of Eden story. It sounds like it should mean something, but I’m f. if I know what it is.

I think that Christianity has contributed a lot to the sum of love and charity in the world.

I don’t. I disagree entirely with the sentiment. Not so many years ago I would have been murdered by Christians for saying that. Christians now think that it was Christianity that abolished slavery, improved our scientific knowledge, advanced women’s rights, that it did not condone wars, that it stood by the side of workers when they tried to form unions etc. They have no idea of the history of Christianity except that they are told by those that they follow. At least it might give (a false) consolation to people it once refused an education to. As Jon Stewart said “Religion, it gives hope to people in a world torn apart by religion”.

There are plenty of people, that vast majority even, of believers of all faiths and of all gods that are “ordinary decent people”. They are the same as me and you, no better or no worse. They are that way not because of their faith but despite it (or in spite of it). But it is that same faith that produces monsters in all their shapes and forms. It takes down many of those same descent people along the way. ISIS today is what Christianity was in Europe for centuries. It took the secular world to calm them down. They now adhere to many of the principles that atheists in the past held up as superior standards and principles to live by.

It is not that Christians ignore this, it is that they just don’t know or admit to any of its own barbarity in the past.

The following is a description of a religious riot which took place in Alexandria during the early days of the Church: “Among the many victims of these unhappy tumults was Hypatia, a maiden not more distinguished for her beauty than for her learning and her virtues. Her father was Theon, the illustrious mathematician who had early initiated his daughter in the mysteries of philosophy. The classic groves of Athens and the schools of Alexandria equally applauded her attainments and listened to the pure music of her lips. She respectfully declined the tender attentions of lovers, but, raised to the chair of Gamaliel, suffered youth and age, without preference or favor, to sit indiscriminately at her feet. Her fame and increasing popularity ultimately excited the jealousy of St. Cyril, at that time the Bishop of Alexandria, and her friendship for his antagonist, Orestes, the prefect of the city, entailed on her devoted head the crushing weight of his enmity. In her way through the city, her chariot was surrounded by his creatures, headed by a crafty and savage fanatic named Peter the Reader, and the young and innocent woman was dragged to the ground, stripped of her garments, paraded naked through the streets, and then torn limb from limb on the steps of the Cathedral. The still warm flesh was scraped from her bones with oyster-shells, and the bleeding fragments thrown into a furnace, so that not an atom of the beautiful virgin should escape destruction.” The cruelty of man when spurred on by the mania of religious zeal!

It makes no sense to salvage Christianity cuz it has some things about it that are not entirely odious. You might find some positives in Nazism also. Good family values, unity, blonde hair and blue-eyed uber alles, and a bonus for building the autobahn. Whatever is positive about Nazism, are those attributes reason enough to assign value to Nazism?

As far as cherry picking goes it is not a good idea to encourage it. Christianity requires adherents to have faith and submit to authority. Therefore, an adherent can with as much justification follow the commands/tenets that are frighteningly backwards and cruel as the okay parts. And as i think you have acknowledged there is not anything original about Christianity. I am sure an intelligent 10 year old could write ethical principles that are as evolved/advanced as the best of Christianity.